


(my heart's) running out of cellotape

by nosecoffee



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: (for my standards), Breakups, Buzzfeed Quizzes About Cheesecakes, College AU, Comedy, Dirk works at Starbucks because I said so, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Found Families, Friends to Lovers, Gratuitous Titanic References, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Karaoke, M/M, Mild Illegal Activity, Mutual Pining, No Family Christmas Club, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Roller Rink Restaurants, Rom-Com Elements, Romance, Slow Burn, Speeches About Love, Todd the King of Awful Kisses, Unapologetic TV Show Recommendations, Very YA Coming Of Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13380960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: "We should make the most of this situation." Dirk says."What? Like have sex?" Todd says, snorting.Dirk goes rather red at this suggestion, and kicks Todd in response. "Or I could kick you out and use the leg room." He says.(A college au in which Todd and Dirk skirt around their feelings for each other because they're dipshits)





	(my heart's) running out of cellotape

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "You" by Dodie Clark
> 
> I have no excuse for this. I live in Australia, I don't know how college works. Bear with me.
> 
> Here's a link to my playlist for this, check it out, if you want. https://open.spotify.com/user/jemmylouphil/playlist/4z0l0ADBJ7WzvvJ6lyxynN?si=30ktDTeYRNe2eiCdrilULA

Todd is a patient kind of person. He really is. Ask anybody.

Except for when he's not.

"Amanda, I _cannot_ make a goddamn road trip down to Oregon right now." Todd moans, tossing an arm over his face. Silas is a goddamn morning person and left the curtains open and that is hurting his brain like a motherfucker. "Look, term is about to start, and if I miss one class I'm gonna get expelled, or some shit."

"You will not, you absolute turd-fucker." His sisters tinny voice responds, on the other end of his phone, pressed between his shoulder and his ear. "Besides, I need your help."

"You should have had an existential crisis and decided to move out of home for senior year, _before_ I went back to college, after break." He says and sits up, taking hold of the phone and putting it on speaker, looking blearily around the room. "Okay?"

"No, not okay, your goddamn music theory lessons can wait." Amanda says, in that gruff voice that used to scare him, but now - _where are his pants_? "If I run home with my tail between my legs because I don't have the money to hire movers and I can't drag a mattress up four flights of stairs, by myself, our parents might literally murder me."

"They will not." Todd argues.

"They _will_." She says, and Todd falls off his bed, reaching for his jeans.

"I can't have this conversation right now." He groans, from the floor. Those last few tequila shots that Tina forced down his throat were a terrible idea and he wishes he was dead.

"And why the fuck not?" Amanda demands. He wonders where she's having this conversation. The back room of the record store where she works? Her bedroom? Todd has no idea.

"Because, I've got things to do." It sounds weak to him too, as he hops to pull his jeans on, and stubs his toe on Silas's bedside table. "I've got to check up on Tina and see if she's passed out in a dumpster or actually dead this time. Fuck, Amanda, I've got a fucking job."

"Which can wait while you steal Silas's car and drive to Oregon to help me move out. I know he has one of those stylish yet monstrous minivans." Todd rubs his face and begins to reply when she cuts him off, "Don't deny it. I saw it on his Instagram."

Todd sighs and curses his mother for putting him and Amanda through every form of debate clubs offered to them as children instead of dance lessons or something else. Amanda's too good at arguing. "I am not stealing my roommates car to come and help you move house."

"Suit yourself." Amanda huffs, and Todd hears a bell, somewhere in the background on her end, so she is at work. "But when you come home for Thanksgiving, I'll be nothing but an upright grave in the backyard."

"Why upright?" He questions, and sniffs at his shirt.

"Google maps can't find graves if they're not horizontal." Amanda informs him.

"That's bullshit." Todd accuses, pulling his shirt off and going rummaging through his open suitcase for a clean one.

"Fuck you." She cries

"Fuck _you_." He responds, and hangs up.

This is the moment when the door bursts open and Tina Teventino, best friend of the son of the local sheriff, and only person who seemed to like Todd's band before it flopped, strides in, shades on, looking like she just fought her way out of a paper bag.

"Toddy-B, do I have _fantastic_ news for you-" Tina stops, mid-step, mid-sentence and sprints for the bathroom, vomiting in the toilet. Good to know she's feeling the aftershocks of last night, too.

"Getting what you deserve, Teventino?" He calls, spitefully, and shoves open his toiletries bag for his bottle of Advil.

"Oh, fuck you Brotzman, you bring out the worst in me." She groans, her voice echoing off the tiles. Todd swallows his pills with half a mouthful of cold coffee (he gags but there's no turning back once it's in his mouth), and crosses to the bathroom to offer her some.

Tina takes them thankfully, and uses her hand to cup water from the tap to help the pills down. Farah once lectured them on how dangerous it was for them to be dry swallowing pills, and ever since then, Tina has forced them to drink something with their pills.

"Okay," Tina says, standing up on wobbly legs, "back to the matter at hand."

"Should you be upright right now?" Todd questions, steadying her and leading her back out into the dorm.

"Fuck you." She replies, lovingly. "Anyway. So. Farah's gonna try and set you up tonight."

"What?" Todd cries, setting Tina down on his unmade bed. "Why? With who?"

"I dunno much about it." She admits, taking out her phone and deftly unlocking it, to show him something on her dimmed, cracked screen. "But she texted me this morning about some guy she met at Panto Trost's party and how she's gonna set you two up and put holes in a newspaper to watch your date."

"I hate her." Todd mutters.

"No you don't." Tina says, airily, turning her phone back to face her and clicking it off.

"No I don't." And that is the problem, because Todd is half in love with Farah Black, and has been since she punched him in the face, by accident, during a bar fight, and there's no way she'd ever be interested in him like that. "Why does she think I need a date? I'm fine. I have a job. And I have you. Why would I need to go on a date?"

"Like I said, I dunno much about it." Todd snorts and rummages through his suitcase for a clean pair of socks. "Look, she seems to think this'd be a good idea for you, and I know for a fact that you did not get laid, at any point, during break."

"I feel like you don't have enough faith in my abilities to get laid." He says, pulling an odd pair from the pile of unfolded clothes and deeming them suitable for the day.

"I mean, sure, but it's not like you've ever given me reason to have faith in you abilities to get laid." Tina tells him, and shrugs once more. Todd stares up at her for a moment. It's not like he could get Tina to convince Farah to go on a date with him instead of setting him up with whatever weird dude she found at Panto Trost's house party. "Besides, it's not like anyone who lives in that suburban wasteland your parents settled in would have any interest in you because they have no taste. This date could be good for you."

Todd sighs, for the millionth time since waking up to answer Amanda's call. "Whatever. Tell her I'll do it."

"Excellent!" Tina grins and picks her phone back up.

~

The dude Farah's decided is a good idea to set Todd up with has the weirdest name known to man and Todd promptly fazes out of all conversation, resorting to grunting in response to anything said to him, directly. Farah decided to cover the tab, from her table a little ways away, and is watching them from behind a book. Every time Todd catches her looking he smiles and she smiles too, and the weird ginger British dude in the loud yellow leather jacket Todd is supposedly on a date with doesn't seem to notice. He's sitting across from Todd and eating a hamburger as if this isn't a fantastically expensive fancy restaurant. Todd kind of wants to strangle him. Todd starts contemplating how much trouble he'd get in for stealing Silas's car to help Amanda move out.

Then again, Silas's godfather is scary as shit and did not look like he was kidding when he told Silas to call him if anything even remotely distressing happened. Though it sounds more interesting than this date he's on, the emergency room will cost more than this dinner.

Todd sucks it up and tries not to look like he's about to pass out in his gnocchi.

~

In an unpredictable turn of events, the ginger British guy Todd was supposedly on a date with gets his own cab, without prompting, leaving Todd and Farah alone, outside the restaurant, and that's how Todd ends up making out with Farah against an alley wall.

Thankfully, Silas is out on a date of his own, tonight, as well, though, with who, Todd does not know nor does he care, which means that Todd's dorm is empty when they get there.

Not the date Todd expected. Todd feels like such an asshole.

~

"Oh, _hello_!" Says an annoyingly familiar voice the next morning and Todd considers turning around and walking out of the classroom. Because he cannot deal with this, right now. The ginger British dude from the night before grins from ear to ear at him, wearing an annoyingly loud blue leather jacket and a tie with polka dots on it.

Todd is not having a good morning, if being so late he did not have time to shower, and Farah just being gone, without a trace, counts as a bad morning. Todd doesn't even want to be in class. He wants to be in bed. He wants to not have been that dick who sleeps with his friend's crush without any kind of regard for his friend's feelings, despite not telling his friend that he knows about her feelings.

Todd walks right past the ginger British guy in the annoyingly loud blue leather jacket and takes a seat, setting his bag down by his feet with a thump. He cannot get away with sleeping in class, but _fuck_ does he wish he could.

The British guy decides to follow him and sit himself right next to Todd. "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot last night."

"I don't." Todd grumbles, sinking in his chair. He's gonna get a stiff neck sitting like this, but he's uninclined to sit up straight like these seats seem to demand.

"Farah told me so much about you." The ginger British guy in the annoyingly loud blue leather jacket continues.

"That's nice." He yawns.

"What are you majoring in?" He asks.

Todd leaves that question unanswered, sinking further in his seat and deciding he thinks he can get away with sleeping in this class, if how ancient the professor looks means anything.

The ginger British dude in the annoyingly loud blue leather jacket doesn't make any further attempts at conversation.

~

And, suddenly, Todd starts seeing him everywhere.

In class, behind the counter at Starbucks, in the library, strolling outside his dorms with a corgi on a leash and a brunette girl who reminds him too much of Amanda. And who looks way too young for him. Silas notes how on edge Todd looks and Todd flips him the bird and takes a sip of Red Bull. (Silas always means well, and Todd cannot stand it.)

And while Todd may like to think he can avoid him at work, he, apparently, _cannot_ avoid him at work and Todd ducks behind a rack of skirts to get away.

(He needs to find a new coffee shop to hang out at. Starbucks may not have been any good, but it wasn't hell.)

~

On top of everything going shittily in Todd's life, at least there's Farah, who he's kinda sorta dating, but most definitely sleeping with and enjoying it a lot, thank you very much. He can count that towards the positives.

She also never takes any of his shit, which is good, and also means that absolutely nothing about their friendship has changed.

“If this whole law enforcement dream doesn't work out, at least I can be a bodyguard.” She calls from the main room of his dorm, and Todd properly pulls in his jeans. “Those are high paying, right?”

“I mean, sure.” Todd replies, towelling off his hair as he exits the bathroom. Farah’s sitting on his bed, scrolling through something on her computer. “Why? You don't think you'll get accepted?”

He drops the towel on the floor and climbs onto the end of the bed, facing her. “It's not… _that_.” Farah says, shaking her head. “My whole family works in law enforcement in some way or another. Fuck, Eddie’s with homeland security, now. And he only just got out of college.”

She pauses, closing her laptop, and putting it one the floor, leaning back against Todd’s pillows. “My dreams are muted in comparison. So if I fail, I wasn't even good enough for for something simple. That's how my family will look at it.”

"Farah, there's no way they won't accept you.” He says, taking one of her hands, and grinning, softly, at her.

“You don't know that, Todd.” Farah sighs. “There are people out there who are much more qualified than me to get in.”

Todd considers this. “Well,” he says, and Farah looks up, seemingly surprised that he has anything to say to that, “I believe that you're qualified enough to be a cop. I think you deserve to go into your dream job.”

“Gah. I don't know.” She drags a hand down her face. “This poli-sci homework is just throwing me curve balls, all the time. I'm just stressed.”

“If you need help studying, I'm here.”

“I know, Todd.” Farah breathes, and squeezes his hand. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” He kisses her, but it's briefer than usual.

"Alright,” she says, and gets up, stuffing her laptop in her bag and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “If I don't leave now, I'll _definitely_ be late for class.”

"Will I see you tonight?” Todd asks, getting up from the bed.

"Duh. It's bowling night, Todd.” She narrows her eyes and grins, devilishly. “Bring your A-game.”

~

Amanda stops calling to complain about being on house arrest since her I'm-Moving-Out stunt. She only calls rarely, now. Todd misses her.

~

"I have three questions for you." Todd says to the weird ginger British guy in the obnoxiously green leather jacket at a party Tina dragged him to and promptly abandoned him at. Because it only makes sense to have bumped into the weird ginger British guy in the obnoxiously green leather jacket, who doesn't look nearly as shitfaced as Todd feels, but does look very intrigued that Todd has decided now is the time to talk to him.

"And what would those be?" He asks in his insufferable accent.

"One, who is your girlfriend and why does she look a decade your junior?” Todd begins ticking each of his questions off with his fingers. “Two, how did you manage to sneak your dog into your dorm? Three, what the fuck is your name, again? I have a terrible memory."

The weird ginger British guy in the obnoxiously green leather jacket looks bemused at this line of questioning. "My girlfriend?" He questions, and takes a gulp from his cup.

"Yeah, the brunette you walk your corgi with, every morning." Todd clarifies, and narrows his eyes, accusingly. "I've seen you, you walk right past my dorm."

"That's not my girlfriend." The ginger tells him, pleasantly. "Or my dog, for that matter. Her name is Lydia Spring, she's the Deans daughter and a good friend of mine. It's her dog. I just run errands at the same time that she walks it and I join her on her walk."

Todd puts his cup down on a nearby flat surface of some kind and rubs his face. "Oh my god."

"How is it you don't know my name?" He questions, instead of addressing Todd's strange tendency to mistake people for other people's significant others. "We went on a date! We’re in the same English class.”

"Yeah, and it didn't end the way either of us thought it would." Todd replies, hinting, rather obviously, at his newfound relationship with Farah.

"My name is Dirk Gently." The ginger informs him, looking a bit put out.

"That is such a weird name." Todd says, in return.

Dirk harrumphs, taking another gulp of his drink. "Well, it's not like 'Todd Brotzman' is an enviable name, now is it." He replies.

"I thought you were supposed to be nice." Todd says. "Didn't Farah say you were nice?"

"Yes, but, as well meaning as Farah is, she's also a terrible judge of character and that's why she's seeing you." Dirk responds, and smiles triumphantly when Todd goes pale.

"Oh Jesus, how do you know about that?" He asks, and picks up his drink, deciding he can live with the foul taste of whatever alcohol was poured into his cup.

"Doesn't everyone?" Dirk asks, with a tip of his head.

"I cannot deal with anything, right now." Todd groans, and rubs his face, distractedly.

"How's about this?" He suggests, and points between their cups. "We get drunk."

Todd thinks it over for exactly six and a half seconds. "Sure."

~

Todd ends up spilling his heart out to Dirk, sitting in the bathtub, in the bathroom, at this party, telling him all about how he feels like it's not gonna work out with Farah and he's definitely going to drop out before graduating, he knows it, and how Amanda's driving him crazy over the phone with her quest for independence antics.

In return, Dirk tells Todd about how much he misses England, and how he only came over for a year, but then gained citizenship, and how he's definitely going to fail his advanced English course, and how he misses his mother and so on.

They get thrown out at about three am and walk (re: stumble) to Dirk's dorm. Dirk announces that he's going to vomit about five seconds before he does so on Todd's second-hand Converse.

~

Everything about Dirk is weirdly pleasant.

~

They strike up an unlikely friendship that starts with Todd waking up, sprawled half on top of Dirk and drooling on his shoulder, and continues in a similar vein with Dirk waking up and screaming, shrilly, causing Todd to fall off of him, and the bed, and land in the pile of vomit neither of them felt the need to clean up, last night.

Todd arrives back at his dorm, later that morning, without his plaid button down on, and Silas gives him a knowing look. Todd takes a long shower. The vomit smell remains. Farah and Tina both complain when they meet up at Starbucks, and Dirk waves at him from behind the counter, looking like he's never had a hangover in his life.

Todd flips him the bird and sinks into his seat.

~

“How wrong is Facebook stalking?” Todd asks. Tina is hanging half off his bed.

“Depends. Who're you stalking?” She replies. Todd shifts his computer to show her a picture on Dirk’s Facebook page of a younger Dirk with freckles on his face, and an older, ginger woman standing behind where he's seated, both wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, both staring out at the corner of the picture.

Tina laughs so hard she falls off the bed.

~

Amanda calls during one of his classes, and he lets it go to voicemail, because as much as Todd would love to talk to her right now (and he really would, he misses her), he can't risk anything by leaving in the middle of class.

Her voicemail is jumbled and incoherent, but there is something about him not having to go to their parent's for Thanksgiving because she finally got herself moved out, without his help, thanks very much, and he can come and visit her whenever, since she's a whole independent person, now.

She doesn't pick up when he calls her back, after class.

~

Farah groans about her criminal justice assignments and Todd hands her muesli bars and smoothies he bought at the coffee shop down the road. He calls Amanda four times and Farah kisses his head, leaving for class.

It feels jarring and clunky, and it doesn't get better.

Farah looks like she's going to tear her hair out whenever she's with him, and Todd can just feel it ending and it makes his stomach sink.

~

He wakes up at eleven pm, having fallen asleep on his music theory work, to his phone ringing and buzzing on the mattress beside his head. He picks it up slowly, half hoping whoever is on the other end of the line will take a hint and fuck off.

"Hello?" Todd croaks into the receiver, squinting in the light from the lamp on his bedside table.

"Todd? Thank goodness." Says Dirk's voice on the other end of the line, and Todd blinks more awake.

"Dirk? Why are you calling me? Is this about the English homework?" Todd gasps, halfway towards a tired and spiteful laugh, "Is this a _booty call_?"

"It is most definitely _not_ a booty call." Dirk sounds rather offended at this accusation. "Do you know where Farah is?"

"Uh, no. I mean, Tina might know, but I got home from work and passed out." Todd yawns into the back of his wrist and sits up properly. Jesus Christ, he didn't even take off his shoes. "I haven't seen her since we met up at Chipotle for lunch."

"Fantastic." Dirk groans, and there's a dull clanging sound. "Fine. How far away are you from the local police station?"

Todd feels utterly bewildered. "Why are you at-?"

"Don't ask questions." Dirk replies, sharply. "Can you pick me up?"

"I mean, probably." Todd responds.

"Great."

And then he hangs up. And Todd just stares at his phone for a second. At this point, he would've preferred a booty call.

~

"I can't believe you just punched some dude in the face." Todd says, tiredly. He had to sign what seemed like an unending amount of nondisclosure forms to get Dirk out. Thank god Hobbs was in, this late at night, and really nice about the whole thing. (He's doing an apprenticeship at the police station, so he can be sheriff, like his dad, one day.) The guy Dirk punched won't be pressing charges.

"I'm sorry, but he stole Lydia's dog, he had it coming." Dirk responds, looking ragged.

"You have no proof that that old ass man snuck into her yard and stole her dumbass corgi." Todd responds, and thinks of the pissed off man in the waiting room at the police station who had glared at Dirk through the whole interaction. Although, if he wasn't stealing Lydia Spring's dog, why would Dirk have punched him?

"I have plenty." Dirk counters.

"No, you don't." And Todd yawns, again. "Just come on. I want to sleep."

They walk in silence, for a bit, on the way back to Todd's dorm. The police station is closer to Todd's side of campus, and Dirk's dorm sits on the whole other side, just to inconvenience Todd, apparently, so Dirk will be staying in Silas's empty bed, tonight. (Silas has been going missing for nights at a time, returning in the morning all smiley faced, and Todd will get to the bottom of it if it kills him.)

Dirk clears his throat, "I feel like this has been a real bonding experience, Todd."

"Do you now?" He says, without really wanting an answer.

"I do." Dirk agrees, happily

"Great, well, be sure to call me the next time you get arrested for assault." Todd says, as they come upon his dorm building.

"Will do!" Dirk says, happily, and follows him up the stairs.

~

"This isn't working," Farah says, only a few nights later, and that's the end of it.

It's not the worst breakup he's ever had.

~

"You know she sells weed, right?" Todd says, leaning against the counter. Starbucks is pretty empty today, so Dirk can spare a few minutes to talk to Todd about the reason he's blowing off bowling night.

"She does _not_." Dirk replies, rolling his eyes.

"She _does_. She's sold me weed. She's my weed guy." Todd takes a sip of his coffee, and gives Dirk an exasperated look. "And I know she has a bunch of other intense shit up her sleeve. People have gotten absolutely fucked up for a while after taking the shit she sells."

He makes a dismissive noise and pushes away from the counter, "I don't care."

"She once tried to sell me mushrooms, Dirk. Honest to god mushrooms." Todd insists. He's not actually sure why he's so insistent that Dirk not go on this date.

"I wonder where she got those from." Dirk muses instead of addressing the fact that his date had access to _honest to god mushrooms._

"It doesn't matter, Dirk." He says, and takes a bite of the overpriced macaron he ordered.

"You're right, it doesn't." Dirk agrees with the air of someone who just won a very important argument. "What _also_ doesn't matter is if she sells drugs. I don't care, she's nice, and I'm not going to let you ruin my date with stories of her illegal, _private_ business."

"Mona Wilder will eventually get you fucked up." Todd says to him, when he returns, giving the whole store a disdainful look. Todd hopes he didn't put that look on his face. "She's persuasive."

Dirk sighs, and his expression is now tired, which Todd was not expecting, at all. "Why are you even here?" He asks.

"Tending to a broken heart by avoiding Farah." Todd replies, warily. Dirk snorts. "She doesn't ever come here."

"She came here to meet up with you." Dirk points out.

"Once. Doesn't count. I'm avoiding her. End of story." Todd waves a hand and burns his tongue with a too large mouthful of coffee. "Can we go back to talking about how weird it is that you're going on a date with my weed guy?"

"Your weed guy is very sweet." Dirk says, dismissively. It seems no conversation between them can go without either of them getting offended or upset. Fantastic.

"And what do you have in common?"

"Just the thing I'm going to find out on my date, tonight. That's what dates are for, you know." Dirk tips his head, thoughtfully. "Although, I guess you _wouldn't_ know, considering you spent most of our date staring at your food like you'd been poisoned."

"Oh, fuck off." The bell on the door tinkles as someone walks in, and Todd takes this as his cue to go. "I'm going to class. Let me know how your date goes."

"Of course." The exhaustion and annoyance is gone from his tone, replaced by the normal cheeriness that Todd can't help but see through. "See you later, Todd."

~

Panto folds another shirt. "So, I heard you and Farah broke up." He says, giving Todd a sympathetic look.

Todd groans and lets his head think into the table they're folding, at work. "Did you now?"

"Yes." And then, for clarification, "Bartine told me."

Of course. Anything Panto knows, Bart knows. "And how did Bart find out?"

"Through Ken." Panto replies, simply, picking up another unfolded shirt and smoothing it out.

"And how did Ken hear?" This line of questioning was fruitless, especially in a conversation he didn't want to know much about.

"He was fixing Tina's wifi router and Farah told Tina on speakerphone." And, ah, yes, that makes a lot of sense. The t-shirt in Todd's hands scrunches with his fist and he sighs, deeply.

"That's such a convoluted way for you to have found out." Todd tells him.

"I think that's how anybody finds out anything, Todd." Panto replies, matter-of-factly, and while he's not wrong, Todd doesn't really want him to be right.

"Whatever." He dismisses it, waving a hand, and going back to folding. "Can't be any more interesting than wherever Silas is spending all his time, now."

Panto goes still. "You know Silas?"

"Uh, yeah, he's my roommate." He responds, and looks up. Panto looks a bit caught. When he sees Todd looking he smiles. It looks fake.

"Ah." Is all he says.

Todd finishes folding the shirt and puts it down, leaning in to look at Panto closer. "What do you know that you aren't telling me?" He asks, in a low voice.

"Well, I, uh..." Panto bites his lip. "I know where Silas has been 'spending all his time', as you so eloquently put it."

"Where?" Todd says, trying and failing to make it sound like he's only mildly interested.

"Um, you have to promise you won't tell anybody." Panto looks seriously nervous now, looking up and down between Todd and the table of mostly folded shirts.

"Hope to die." Todd agrees.

Panto gives the area a cursory look and leans in, "Silas was with me."

This confession really shouldn't shock him as much as it does, but the fact that his roommate and his pink-haired coworker are covertly dating actually catches him off guard. "What?"

"Silas and I are seeing each other." Panto says, and returns to his folding.

"Oh. Cool." A pause. "Wait, doesn't his mom hate you?"

"His mother... _dislikes_ me." Todd moves aside so some lady can push through and rummage through their neat stack of shirts for the right size. "She _hates_ my father."

The lady walks away, triumphantly clutching her desired shirt and Todd fixes the perilously stacked pile. "Wow, nice _Romeo and Juliet_ stunt. That's the dream, dude." He says.

"Is it?" Panto replies, quizzically. Todd could laugh. He doesn't.

"I dunno," he shrugs, "but I guess everyone hopes to be so hopelessly attracted to someone that they overcome the obstacles keeping them apart. Which is what I'm guessing you and Silas are doing."

"I..." Todd looks up and Panto looks lost in thought. "I didn't actually think about it that way."

"Well." Todd says, and gives the now neatened table of shirts a once over. "There's some food for thought."

~

Amanda's snapchat is beyond worrying at this point, because he keeps finding pictures of her and four random guys doing all sorts of vaguely illegal shit. He calls her after the string of videos on her story of all of them beating up a car with a crowbar.

"Amanda, what the hell?" He says the moment she picks up.

"Where are your manners, Todd?" She responds, airily.

"Who are those guys on your snapchat?" Todd demands, adrenaline making his heart rate spike. It wouldn't be unlike Amanda to somehow get mixed up with a gang but it's not something he's comfortable with.

"My friends." Amanda says, in a tone that says duh. "They're the guys who helped me move out. If you decide to ditch mom and dad at Thanksgiving and hang with me, instead, they'll also be there. Oh, dude, if you come to my place, please bring a date or it'll be super boring. You still with Farah?"

"No, I'm not, actually." Todd says, in a tense voice.

"Oh, _shit_ , what happened?" Amanda says, in that quiet voice she uses whenever she realises a situation is much more sensitive than she thought.

"Nothing much." He mumbles, rubbing his face and leaning back into his squashed pillows. Class took a lot out of him, and the details of this particular conversation are taking the rest.

"Todd." She insists.

"She...we weren't working out." The hint of bitterness in his tone gives way to a sour taste in his mouth and his eyes going glossy. Todd wasn't expecting this. He wasn't expecting having to talk about this, how could he have been prepared? "It was just sex and then it wasn't really fun anymore, and she said I deserved better and I don't know. We haven't really talked for a while."

"That's so shit, oh my god." Amanda breathes, down the phone, and the. Shushes someone. "If you wanna skip out on class and visit I'll buy you all the froyo you want."

"I'm not really that..." Todd begins to try and deny his state, but his voice cracks, and she makes an unimpressed noise. He swipes at his eyes, but it doesn't really do any good.

"Have you talked to anybody about this?" She questions.

"No." He admits, and now he's sure she can hear him crying. Sobs are rattling out of his mouth without his permission. With anybody else, he'd feel embarrassed, but with Amanda it's easier.

"Well, it’s no wonder the waterworks are suddenly turning on. You can't bottle this shit up, Todd." She clicks her tongue, a few times, thinking something over. "You want me to come down there? Miss Boreton can suck my ass."

" _Yeah_ , she can!" Yells a boy's voice in the background on her end of the line and she yells, " _Fuck off, Vogel_!"

"No, don't skip out on school to come and comfort me." Todd says, and sniffs. "You're already halfway into a gang."

"They're not a gang." She pauses. There's a bit of quiet discussion and snickers. "Well, they kinda are, but Vogel is my age and he goes to my school, and we're going to prom together. It's gonna be big."

"That's great, Amanda." He laughs. Silas walks in, sees Todd's face and bites his lip.

"You gonna be okay?" Amanda asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, I will." Todd takes a deep, shivering breath and wipes at his eyes, again. "Look, I'll call you, later, okay?"

"Okay." She says, softly. "Take care of yourself, turd-fucker."

"You too." She hangs up first. Silas peers at him with a concerned expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" He asks, taking a prim seat on the end of Todd's bed.

"I'm finally coming to terms with my actual broken heart." Todd admits, sadly, putting his phone on his bedside table.

"Oh no." Silas says, and bites his lip further. "What would make you feel better?"

"Don't worry about it." Todd says, waving him away. "I just need to have a full on cry in the shower and then I'll be fine."

"Okay, well, if you change your mind, let me know." He gets up and dumps his bag by the end of his own bed, digging out his wallet and his phone from the front pocket and heading back towards the door. "I have money to burn."

"As you so often remind me." Todd calls after him, as he leaves. He takes a minute to stare, sadly, at the ceiling, before getting off the bed and heading into the bathroom.

~

It's Hobbs's birthday, and Tina brings Todd around to the celebration as her date. Hobbs having finally turned twenty-one means that they get to celebrate in a bar. And that also means that Todd can get fall down drunk in the name of celebration. Or, at least, those are the terms he sets to Tina when she begs him to join her.

"It'll be good for you," she says, leg up on the edge of the bathtub as she shaves her shin. Todd sits on the lid of her toilet, scrolling through a _Buzzfeed_ article on his phone and chewing on the half weed gummy she gave him. "I haven't seen you out for ages."

"You haven't seen me out, but I have been out." Todd replies, and switches to a quiz about what cheesecake he is because of his zodiac sign. "Ask Dirk."

"I can't ask Dirk anything," Tina replies and her mouth twists, comically, as she inspects her leg for spots she missed. "He never gives me a straight answer before going off on a tangent."

"It's part of his charm." Todd explains, and harrumphs at the result of key lime cheesecake.

"It is." Mona agrees, appearing in the doorway, with a packet of McDonald's fries. Todd nods to her, and she jerks her chin back at him, smiling widely.

"I'll never get either of you." Tina complains, and runs water over her leg with the shower head.

"Oh, hey, I never asked, how did your date with him go?" Todd says, clicking his phone off, and turning to face Mona. She offers him the packet of fries and he takes a few.

"It went interestingly." She say in her usual airy tone. "There won't be a second one, but I quite like him and his jackets."

"No second date?" Tina asks, incredulously, as if she couldn't imagine a better match than Mona and Dirk.

"No." Mona smiles, ruefully, and turns to the mirror, picking up her toothbrush from the holder. "I think we're just meant to be friends, and he shared the sentiment."

"Oh." Todd feels a little lighter for some reason, and Tina's giving his smile a raised eyebrow. He supposes it looks out of place after all his moping. "Well."

"You coming, tonight?" Tina asks her roommate. Mona shakes her head, handing Todd the rest of her fries.

"I have other plans, actually." She says, around her toothbrush.

"Oh _yeah_?" Tina moves away from the bathtub and grabs her towel off the rack, wiggling her eyebrows at Mona.

"Yes." Mona replies, and spits in the sink. She smiles at her reflection. "A boy from work is taking me dancing."

"Old fashioned." Todd comments.

"I like it." Tina says.

"Not a lot going on in his head." She shrugs at the two of them. "I figured I'd see what happens."

"Alright, but if your drink tastes salty, call me and I'll come pick you up." Tina says, and pats Mona's shoulder, moving out of the bathroom. Todd stands up, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his jeans, packet of fries going cold in his hand.

"The same to you, Tina." Mona says, and follows them out of the bathroom. She grabs her coat and leaves moments later.

"Not too much going on in _her_ head, either." Tina says, flopping down on the edge of her bed to pull a pair of socks on. "Must be a match made in heaven."

"Surprises me that she and Dirk didn't work out." Todd says, and Tina twists her mouth at him.

"I'm surprised you didn't know until now." She says, pulling her boot on. "I thought you and Dirk talked twenty-four-seven, nowadays."

Todd frowns. "He didn't mention it."

"I wonder why." Todd raises an eyebrow and Tina holds her hands up as if in surrender, for a moment. "So, are you coming or not?"

He sighs. "May as well."

~

They leave the bar a little after one am, after Tina falls off her stool for the fourth time, and they end up sitting on Hobbs's apartment building's roof. Because he has an apartment, not a dorm like the rest of them.

Todd feels pretty out of it, but by the time they're passing around a joint, he loses pretty much everything.

He grabs Tina by the sleeve and leans in, well aware that his breath stinks. "You know what, dude. Farah's great. I was such an asshole. I knew you liked her, and I started sleeping with her, anyway. But I want you to know that I want you to be happy, and if dating her is what would make you happy, I think you should go for it. You know?"

"Todd, I was upset, but then I wasn't." Tina slurs back, grabbing his sleeve, as well, joint between two of her fingers. "I mean, I like her, and all, but I never thought you were an asshole."

"You should've." Todd says to her. "She deserves better than me. And you're so much better than me."

"Don't say that." Tina responds, putting her finger to his lips and pouting.

"I think you should ask her out." Todd says, pushing her hand away from his mouth.

"Really?" She asks, taking a long drag from the joint before handing it to him.

"Yeah." Todd agrees.

"Thanks, dude. You're a real one."

"A real what?"

"I dunno."

~

Todd wakes up in Hobbs's bathtub, with six missed calls, one hundred and twenty seven texts, and three voicemails, one of which is Dirk giggling into the receiver for two minutes straight.

Todd finds, only a little bit later, that he's been tagged by Tina on Instagram.

The photo is of him, wearing nothing but his boxers and Hobbs's dad's old sheriff hat, posed on the edge of the roof, triumphantly holding what looks to be a crank, with his free hand on his hip.

His hangover is absolutely legendary. Moving his eyes hurts.

He falls asleep in the bathtub, again, a little after that, and wakes up again, three hours later, feeling like he's just been brought back from the dead, when Tina turns on the shower head and douses him in cold water.

~

Deciding to actually go home to Oregon for Thanksgiving is an easy decision after that. Amanda's request ringing high in his ears and the need for a ride there means that he finds himself hovering around the counter at Starbucks, waiting for Dirk to stop doing his damn job and notice him.

And then it's just a question of whether Dirk would like to join Todd in Salem, Oregon, at his sister's new share house with her new gang friends, for Thanksgiving.

"It's a ten hour drive." Todd tells him after Dirk quickly accepts. He thinks, in his head he meant it as a warning, but it does nothing to shake down Dirk's sudden excitement.

"Lucky I drink a lot of caffeine, then, isn't it?" Dirk responds.

~

As it turns out, Dirk Gently owns a small, rust bucket red jeep with a convertible roof and drives like a _goddamn fucking maniac._

Todd fears for his life for the first half hour, driving out of Helena, Montana, but after that, he resigns himself to being dead in a ditch, at some point, during the next ten hour road trip. The snow does not help Dirk's driving.

Todd tries to focus on the music, and not on how likely his death will be in the near future.

~

"Why do you look like you're seconds from throwing yourself out of the car?" Dirk asks, two hours into Todd's tense silence.

"I..." Todd swallows. "I've never done this before."

Dirk tips his head to the side, but keeps his eyes on the road. "Never done a roadtrip before?"

Somehow, Todd doesn't think he actually means it, but he decides not to comment on that. "No. Um. Thanksgiving without my parents."

"Well, I've never done Thanksgiving before. American tradition, and all." He pauses, sensing the tension in Todd only getting worse, which was so obviously not his goal. "Why have you decided this year to not do it with them?"

"Summer break was pretty rough for Amanda and I. Our parents have never been award winning or anything, and our household hasn't exactly been the epitome of mental health, for, I mean, ever, but summer break was awful, and Amanda has spent the months since I came back to college trying to get away from them." He taps his fingers against his knee caps, nervously, looking at Dirk from the corner of his eye. "That's why I was so shitty to you when you met me. I was kinda, I guess, recovering from all that shit, and not doing it well. We're doing Thanksgiving without them because it'll be an easier holiday with just us."

"Oh." Says Dirk, and he licks his lips, glancing quickly at Todd. "That's. I mean. I think that'll be better for both of you. To be in a more positive and supportive environment during this time."

"Oh yeah?" Todd asks, and elbows him, softly, in the arm.

"Yeah." Dirk agrees.

~

Fours hours in, they pass through Spokane, and get a warm drinks at a drive-thru coffee shop. Lunch comes from McDonald's since they can't be bothered wasting time or energy walking into a café.

They stop for a toilet break at a public restroom in a park and switch drivers which Todd is more comfortable with. Dirk picks the music, this time, which seems to be a mix of Dodie Clark, Neon Trees, and MIKA. Todd can't say he doesn't enjoy it.

Five hours in, Dirk decides to start playing I Spy, and while Todd doesn't really care about the game, that much, it still sucks that he keeps losing.

Half an hour after that the snow gets heavier and the sky gets dark with clouds, and Todd has to turn on the headlights. Dirk turns down the music, a bit, to help Todd focus more, on the road.

They pass through a steady stream of tiny towns on their way through Washington State and at hour six, they stop for another toilet break and to switch over, again, because Dirk absolutely insists that he's a careful driver during bad weather.

Todd is dubious but it's his car, so he lets him take the wheel.

This isn't exactly a mistake, but Todd does regret it for every minute up until hour seven, when they cross into Oregon and he insists they pull over at the nearest rest stop. The nearest rest stop is a small convenience store that has heating on at full blast.

Todd and Dirk hang out inside it, buying cheap candy bars and such while they warm up (Dirk's car has no insulation, whatsoever, so Todd didn't know he was freezing until he stepped into the store). They watch the snow pick up from inside, giving each other concerned looks.

The only cashier chucks them out thirty minutes after they arrive, saying he has to close up early, to get home to his family for Thanksgiving. Todd thinks it's best they follow suit.

That is, until Dirk's car won't start.

The cashier is long gone, by now, and to top it all off, there's no service, so they resort to sitting in Dirk's car as it gets darker and darker outside, and more and more snow piles up on the windscreen, and they get colder and colder.

Todd did not know this was how he was going to die.

Dirk, bundled up in all the jackets he'd brought with him is shaking like a leaf, and looking quite pale. Todd supposes he doesn't look much better, having only (stupidly) brought three changes of clothes and a single jacket.

"We should make the most of this situation." Dirk says.

"What? Like have sex?" Todd says, snorting.

Dirk goes rather red at this suggestion, and kicks Todd in response. "Or I could kick you out and use the leg room." He says.

"You'd only freeze faster." Todd points out, ignoring the fact that he'd probably be frozen much faster than Dirk if he was outside the car.

"Yeah. But not as fast as you." Dirk droops a little. "I meant we could play twenty questions or huddle for warmth or something. Are you religious? I'm not, but if you are, I'm sure praying to your preferred deity can't hurt."

"I'm not, actually." Todd says.

"Oh. Okay, then."

He starts praying, anyway. Better than sitting in silence.

~

Todd thinks it's been about an hour since they stopped, initially, and half an hour since they got kicked out of the convenience store. He's so cold it's scary. His phone died ten minutes ago.

Dirk has his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins to keep them there. Todd's curled into a similar ball, leaning against the door, which probably isn't helping his steadily falling temperature problem.

He gives up all sense of pride then and there, an hour after stopping, half and hour after the car wouldn't start.

"Alright, come over here and zip me into your windbreaker." He says, uncurling and feeling how stiff his limbs are.

"Absolutely not." Dirk says, through gritted teeth.

"We'll be warmer if we're closer." Todd says.

"If you bring your coldness anywhere near me, I will kick you out." He warns him, unwrapping one hand from around his knees to hold up a reprimanding finger.

Todd snorts, "Because that's any worse than in here."

"A lot more actual snow." Dirk says.

"Fair." He says, and turns back to his companion. "Dirk, look, I'm pretty sure this is a proven method of staying warm. Just come here."

Dirk stares at him for a moment, a look in his eyes that Todd can't quite discern in the dark, and then slowly uncurls, unzipping his jacket with a reluctant look on his face. Todd scoots closer and almost sighs at the sudden flush of faint warmth radiating from Dirk's body.

The method proves itself after a while. They're slumped against the driver side door, with Todd flat against Dirk's torso.

“Do you think we’re gonna die here?” Todd asks, cheek resting against the warmth of Dirk’s bare neck.

“Gosh, I hope not.” Dirk replies, and Todd huffs a nervous laugh in response.

He pulls away a little, looking at Dirk’s face, even though it's blurry with proximity and dim in the darkness. His expression is soft and open, despite everything. Kissing him feels like second nature.

His lips part easily under Todd’s, almost like he was expecting the kiss, and his mouth is warm. Todd manages to pull an arm out of the windbreaker to cup Dirk’s face. Dirk makes this heart wrenching gasping kind of noise into Todd’s mouth (the kind of heart wrenching gasping noise that someone who's never been kissed makes) and struggles to try and grab Todd’s t-shirt inside the windbreaker.

It's not the worst kind of kiss ever, even Todd, king of awful kisses, will attest to that, but it's also not awesome. He just can't get close enough. He just can't kiss him deep enough. He just can't keep his eyes open.

And they fall asleep like that, zipped into the same jacket, curled up on half of the jeep bench.

~

They wake to knocking on the window. "Is there anybody in here?" Asks a girl’s muffled voice on the other side of the glass. "Dad, I think it's empty!"

Todd scrambles to get upright and open the door, without letting Dirk fall out of the car, which proves to be quite a task considering he's still zipped into Dirk's windbreaker and it's so toasty warm inside.

It feels like the scene in _Titanic_ where they're searching for survivors and Rose has to let Jack sink to get to the whistle that saves her life. After unzipping the windbreaker with enormous difficulty, he opens the driver side door, and only just stops Dirk from tumbling out onto the asphalt.

Lydia Spring stares at them. And then she turns to the car idling next to them, in the parking lot. "Dad! Dirk and his friend were in the car!"

~

Patrick Spring, the Dean of Students, revives their car quite easily and quickly ("Dead battery.") and drives with them a third of the way to Salem before turning off, shaking their hands, and driving off to wherever the Dean of Students and his daughter go for Thanksgiving.

Dirk and Todd don't really talk for the rest of the drive, until Todd has to read out directions to Amanda's share house. He doesn't really know what to say. How can he say anything after he kissed Dirk? How can he say anything after kissing Dirk the way he kissed him? He feels like an ass.

“Left here?” Dirk asks, softly, flicking on the indicator.

Todd shakes himself from his reverie and looks down at his phone. “Uh, no. No, right here, and then the first left after that.”

Dirk curses and turns the steering wheel dramatically to the opposite side, flicking the indicator again. Todd barely flinches at the violence in the turn. Just proves how long he's been in the car with Dirk.

He wants to say something. He really does.

He feels tense. He feels like he's made a mistake. He feels too much and he wants too much and he wants to squash it all down deep until it finally shuts up and stops stuffing his head with cotton and he can finally stop staring at Dirk, helplessly, like Dirk’s about to break his heart.

Why did he hand his heart over to Dirk so eagerly after having it snapped in half so recently? Why did he think he could take it?

The car slows. “Is that it?” Dirk asks. Todd wipes his window with his jacket sleeve and squints at the mailbox, dismissing thoughts of what Dirk thinks of his stunt back in the parking lot.

“Yep, that's it.” Todd says, and Dirk carefully reverses and pulls into the driveway beside Amanda’s second hand PT Cruiser and a seriously beaten up and graffitied van. The heating turns off with the rest of the car and Todd can't help meeting Dirk’s eyes and laughing with him as they grab their bags from Todd's footwell and hurry to the front door.

Todd momentarily forgets everything but how nervous he is to see Amanda after all this time. She throws open the door as if there isn't a minor snowstorm going on outside and immediately launches herself into Todd’s arms, causing him to drop his bag and hug her back. Todd staggers a bit, trying to keep them upright.

“Todd!” She yells in his ear, and lets go, a huge smile on her face. “I'm so glad you came! Come on inside - oh, hi, I'm Amanda.”

Dirk accepts Amanda’s handshake with a warm smile. “Hello. Dirk Gently.” He introduces himself. Amanda wiggles her eyes at Todd over Dirk’s shoulder.

“Oh, so I _finally_ get to meet the elusive Dirk Gently.” She says, and clicks her tongue. “Follow me.”

“You talked to your sister about me?” Dirk asks, under his breath, closing the front door behind him.

“Are you saying _you_ haven't talked to your _mom_ about _me_?” Todd whispers back.

"Ooh.” Dirk gives him a dirty look. “Okay, you get out of it this time.”

“Put your bags down in the hallway,” Amanda calls, poking her head through a doorway by the stairs. “I need to introduce you to my friends before I show you guys to the room we put aside for you.”

Dirk and Todd exchange a look, dropping their bags against the wall, and carefully make their way to the doorway she appeared in. Inside is a kitchen, and in that kitchen is four mismatched men trundling about very busily.

Amanda is seated on the island bench, in seemingly the only clear space on it, considering the rest of thee chaos covering its surface. The youngest of the four men is trying to feed her cookie dough off the end of a wooden spoon, and catching sight of this attempt, the one with long hair elbows him in the ribs and Amanda giggles at the both of them.

She gestures for Todd and Dirk to enter.

“Todd, Dirk, these are my roommates.” Amanda announces and all the men turn to look at them. Dirk waves, hesitantly. Amanda gestures to the boy who tried to steal cookie dough. “This is Vogel, he goes to my high school.” She then points to the dark skinned man with the beanie on, “That's Gripps, he works at the local salon.” Gripps waves to them. It's the man with longish hair, next. “That's Cross, he works part time at the hardware store.” Amanda hops off the counter and bumps the last man's hip with hers. He's just pulled the turkey out of the oven. “And this is Martin. He drives Uber.”

“Does he drive Uber in that big van out front?” Todd asks, under his breath, hoping Dirk will hear him, and stop looking quite so suddenly pale. “Because I feel sorry for whoever has to ride with him.”

“These guys wrecked my car.” Dirk says, and everyone stills.

"What?” Todd asks, turning to look at his friend. The men looks quite confused at this accusation, and Amanda is sending Todd _abort!_ looks.

“Last year, I went to see a movie and when I came out to the parking lot to go home, they were destroying my car.” Dirk clarifies.

A realisation dawns on Amanda’s face and she goes quite red in the face. “Yeah, they've just settled down, here.” At this she looks at the ceiling. “They were a gang.”

“Powder blue Corvette?” Asks Martin, gesturing with a carving knife.

“Yep.” Dirk agrees.

Martin nods and the other men nod with him. “Yeah, I remember you.” Martin says, and turns back to the turkey. Amanda shrugs at Todd.

“You had a Corvette?” Todd asks Dirk in a low voice.

“It was a rental.” Dirk agrees, sadly. “Mom was very upset.”

“I can imagine.” Todd says.

~

They never fully apologise, but Dirk relaxes around them, so Todd counts that as a win.

~

Thanksgiving dinner is surprisingly wonderful, and maybe Todd has low standards, but Amanda’s roommates sure can cook.

~

"Are you gonna come ‘round for Christmas?” Amanda asks. It's a little after midnight and they're both pretty tipsy on off-brand beer that she's not supposed to be drinking, yet. Neither of them are actually watching _Cutthroat Kitchen_ , anymore. Everyone else has gone to bed by now. Todd turns to look at her, shoving a handful of room temperature popcorn in his mouth. She glances quickly at him. “It's okay if you don't want to.”

"I'll see what everyone else is doing.” Todd replies once he's swallowed the popcorn. She seems to droop, at this, so he quickly adds, “Not that they're more important than you-”

“No, Todd, I get it.” Amanda interrupts, grabbing his by the elbow to stop him, a reluctant look on her face, like she so wants to force him to come around for Christmas. “We've made our own families. I have the Rowdies and you. You have your friends at college…it's okay if I'm not a part of your family anymore.”

“Are you kidding me? Like hell I’m leaving you behind.” He tugs her into a hug and Amanda just sinks into him, head against his shoulder, fists pressed to his chest.

“I missed you.” She mumbles into the fabric of his sweater.

“I missed you, too.” He murmurs in return. There's a long moment where they just sit there, and breathe. Todd half thinks maybe she's fallen asleep by the even way she breathes.

“So.” Amanda says, pulling back and smiling ruefully as she steals more than her fair share of blanket, proving him wrong.“How about Dirk? Anything happening there?”

“No.” Todd says, shaking his head and taking the popcorn bowl off of the coffee table. “I blew whatever chance I ever had with him. You know I'm a serial first-dater.”

“Sad.” She sighs, immediately stealing the bowl from him, without taking her eyes off the screen.

"How is that sad?” Todd demands. He doesn't want to talk about Dirk, right now.

"Because,” and the way she says it (because) is forceful enough to make him pay attention to whatever she's saying, even if it doesn't really make sense. “I think he's a little closer to being in your league than Farah was.”

“Farah wasn't just out of my league, we were playing different sports.” He laughs, and picks his beer bottle up, off of the floor by the couch. “That's how far out of my league she was.”

"Incredible.” Amanda comments, shoving her hand in the popcorn bowl.

Todd tries to focus on whatever's happening on screen, but something pushes itself to the forefront of his mind. “What about you and Mister Skunk Face?” He asks, oh-so-eloquently.

Amanda doesn't seem offended, she just snorts. “I'm telling Martin you called him that.”

“Please don't.” Todd laughs. “He looks like he could kill me and convince the police that he was innocent.”

"Honestly, knowing him, he probably could and would do that.”

“So, I should avoid telling him about, what was it? Three years ago? Freshman year?” Todd shakes his head, laughing. “Remember? When you wore bunchies and glasses and that awful pink vest?”

"If you do, _I’ll_ kill you.” Amanda warns him, and tosses a piece of popcorn at his head.

“Fair.” He says, and takes another swing of beer. The question hangs in the air, still. “So there is something there?”

“Yeah, I mean…even I don't properly know what's going on there.” Now, she frowns. Todd should have known. The problem with the both of them was that they gave their whole hearts over, entirely, so quickly that sometimes they didn't know they did it. The problem with them was that it was hard to recognise if it was really love or not. And so often - too often - it was not. “I think there's something but I'm too scared to say anything about it in case it completely ruins the friendship. I think, if I'm right, he's scared too.”

He considers this, briefly. “Maybe you can be scared together.”

"Huh?” Amanda doesn't really look like she's listening, especially as she takes a swig of her lukewarm beer.

“I mean, like, when you're watching a horror movie, it's terrible, but if you're watching a horror movie with someone beside you, someone equally as terrified as you are, it's not so bad.” She turns to look at him as he speaks. “So, maybe, you just need to start watching the same horror movie together.”

Amanda leans her head against her open palm and smiles, weirdly, at him. “You know, for a guy who claims he knows nothing about love, you seem to give pretty good speeches about it.” She says.

"Glad you approve.” A pause as they both look at the commotion going on on the TV. “You didn't take anything away from that, did you.”

“Not a word.” Amanda agrees.

“I'll try again, in the morning, when you're sober.” Todd downs the rest of his beer (less than a mouthful, so nothing generous) and gets up, dismissing the thoughts of leftover popcorn. “Come on. Get up. Which is your room?”

Amanda allows herself to be tugged onto her feet, arm around his shoulders. “End of the hallway, on the right.” She says.

Todd half carries her to the room, and hip checks the door open. “Sweet dreams, ‘Manda.” He says, as he deposits her on her bed.

"Sleep well, turdfucker.” She calls after him, and Todd chuckles under his breath as he closes the door on his way out.

~

Dirk clicks his phone off upon Todd’s entrance to the room, and feigns sleep, as if they hadn't met eyes the moment the door opened. There's an actual bed and a blow up bed in the room, and Dirk has officially bagsed the actual bed, meaning that Todd gets to wake up on a deflated air mattress in the morning.

“I know you're awake.” Todd murmurs, and shoves a bunch of his migrated clothes back into his bag to reach the blow up mattress.

Dirk opens his eyes and grins a bit. “I never had to fake sleep when I was a kid, which means I never had practice, so I'm pretty crap at it.” He explains, voice at a whisper.

“No kidding.” Todd snorts, and turns his back on Dirk to undo his shoes. It was only a few hours ago that he’d kissed him, and Todd is trying to tread carefully so as not to disturb the dust that has settled on the feelings that come with those memories. “Amanda and I shared a room for ages. Mom used to try and catch us out of bed. We got good at pretending to be asleep.”

There's a pause and Todd’s shoes thunk loudly on the floorboards by his bag. “I don't have any siblings.” Dirk tells him. Todd turns to look at him as he peels back the covers on the blow up mattress.

“Really.” He prompts, shimmying himself under the quilt.

“Yeah. It's just me and my mom.” Dirk sighs, turning onto his back, arms resting under his head like he's the most relaxed he's ever been. “No extended family to speak of, although I'm sure there's someone out there I'm vaguely related to and have no knowledge of. What about you?”

“Big Catholic family for me.” Todd replies, honestly. A question enters his mind, Amanda’s voice prompting him to ask it. “Speaking of, what are you doing for Christmas?”

“Back home to England, actually.” Is Dirk’s happy-sounding response. “Going to see mom in the Isle of Wight.”

“Oh.” He can't quite keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Cool.”

“What are _you_ doing?” Dirk whispers and Todd feels an awful lot like he's at a sleepover from his childhood.

Todd shrugs, even as he knows that Dirk can't see him. “Probably just hanging out at college.”

“Sounds rather boring but who am I to judge?” Is the reply that comes.

"I think you _do_ kinda get to judge, you're going to the _Isle of Wight_.” Todd says.

Dirk scoffs. “Family tradition.”

He smiles. “I mean, I spent every other Christmas trying to avoid my family, so I guess I'm going about a tradition of my own.”

There's a long silence and Todd wonders to himself that maybe Dirk fell asleep. And then-

“I think you might need some new traditions.”

~

They wake up a bit late, and the streets are a bit snowy, but nothing like the snowstorm on their way down to Salem.

Amanda suggests, as they get ready to leave, that he might want to drive by their parents house and run over their mailbox. Todd doesn't deign this with a response, instead hugging her the way he did, the day before, half lifting her off the ground.

Amanda promises to call.

They get coffee from McDonald’s, along with some breakfast muffins. Dirk almost gets the hot cakes he insisted on, but then Todd asked him what he'd do if he dripped syrup everywhere in the car, and Dirk settled for the breakfast muffin.

The ten hour trip back is only a bit less bearable then the trip there, but Todd doesn't say a word about it. He just talks about random shit with Dirk, to fill the silence. He plays I Spy and Twenty Questions and all that crap because he can't handle the silence.

They very pointedly don't talk about the kiss.

Todd wonders, briefly, if maybe Dirk forgot. He wonders how he could go about forgetting that kind of kiss.

He stops wondering when they get lunch at Subway and Dirk manages to get the most obnoxiously complicated sandwich known to man.

He starts texting Tina when they're two hours out from the college. She sends him about eleven eggplant emojis. He turns his phone off.

~

The fact that there even is a roller rink restaurant at all, much less anywhere near campus shocks Todd. What doesn't shock him is that Mona works there.

(On the list of shocking things about this place is that every Friday night is also karaoke night, they serve a kind of deep fried crab, and Tina is a regular there.)

Tina drags him there, after he arrives back on campus with Dirk. Other than Dirk, she's the only other person who knows about the kiss. And, apparently, she wants to know everything about it.

“I can't _believe_ this!” She exclaims, not loud enough to be heard by anyone but him over the funky disco music playing over the speakers. “Your life is a Rainbow Rowell novel and I'm stuck in a Cassandra Clare plot hole.”

Todd laughs, and lets his head smack into their table. “My life is _not_ a Rainbow Rowell novel. I wish my life was a Rainbow Rowell novel. I'm not cool enough to be a character in a Rainbow Rowell novel. It was a shit kiss, as I'm so good at giving, apparently, so I don't know what you're complaining about.”

“That’s just it, Todd.” Tina tells him, taking a sip of her milkshake. “Even the shit kisses are kisses and they're the kisses we can fully appreciate because we’re not getting distracted by the perfectionism. Like, I mean, you can focus on the personality of the kiss, the emotions and intentions behind it, instead of ‘oh, that was perfect’. It's the awful, meaningful kisses that take your breath away.”

“You're saying that as if a guy hasn't ever shoved his tongue down your throat.”

“C’mon, Todd. I'm tryna be poetic and you're ruining it. Be honoured. You are Todd, the King of Awful Kisses. You kiss with personality. That's what people expect from you.”

“Or I'm Todd, the King of Awful Kisses, and everyone avoids me.” He points out, playing with the glacé cherry on the top of his milkshake. “Which is, you know, _the worst_.”

“Was Dirk complaining?” She asks.

Todd raises an eyebrow. “We fell asleep while we were kissing.”

“ _That's_ the plot to a Rainbow Rowell novel, I swear.” Tina says, and finishes off her milkshake, which is a feat, really, because there was about half of it left.

“It is _not_.” Todd insists.

“It _is_.” She replies, really sticking to her guns. The song switches to some 80’s song that sounds suspiciously like Olivia Newton John.

“Tina, I'm asking you this, honestly.” He says, over the music, biting his lip. “Do you think I have a chance?”

“You're asking _me_ this?” Tina honestly sounds incredulous as she answers, playing with one of her braids.

“I am.” Todd agrees.

“I'd say you have a twenty-five to seventy-five percent chance of having even the vaguest shot with him.” She tells him with a vaguely pained look.

“Great.” He sighs.

She stares for a bit and the heaves a sigh. “Drink up, buddy.” Tina taps the table, insistently. “We have skating to do.”

Todd just pushes his drink away, and gets up with only mild difficulty. “Let's go _Xanadu_ this shit.”

Tina throws her head back and cackles. “You absolute _dork_.” She says and they skate their way over to the rink.

~

There are exactly twenty-eight days between the day Todd and Dirk arrive home from Amanda’s and the day Dirk leaves for Christmas break.

In those twenty-eight days there are exactly twenty days where Todd has to go to classes, exactly five different Christmas parties to go to (Panto’s, the police station’s, the roller rink’s, his music theory class’s, and his work’s), there are exactly seven Christmas presents he needs to buy, and he has exactly five finals to study for.

He has exactly twenty-eight days to tell Dirk how he thinks he feels about him before he leaves for two fucking weeks.

~

Todd wastes _every single day_.

~

Everyone’s going home for Christmas. It feels like the first few Harry Potter books where he stays at school for Christmas because he has no family who wants him home for the holidays.

Amanda wants him home for the holidays, but Todd’s already sent along her present. He doesn't have a car. He's not going to Salem for Christmas.

Tina’s already made the road trip out to Bergsberg to see her family, and brought Hobbs and his dad along with her, because they're all good friends. Dirk left Saturday morning, not a word to anyone, his car gone, his phone straight to voicemail, his snapchat story just a photo out a plane window. Panto and Silas have gone to their respective huge Christmas Gala celebrations with their families, but Todd knows they're meeting up, in secret, on Boxing Day, to have their own Christmas celebration. It's all very sweet.

Even Farah’s home for Christmas, which honestly surprises Todd. She may be the ‘disappointment child’, as she'd confessed to Todd while they were still in their limbo relationship, but they’re family.

Which leaves Todd alone.

Which is.

 _Great_.

~

The nearest supermarket is eleven blocks away from campus which means a long cold trudge for Todd to get whatever Christmas dinner for him will be.

At least there's intense heating going on, inside, when he gets there. One of the tree cashiers on, today, gives him a sympathetic when he steps inside and unzips his jacket.

Todd ends up roaming the aisles and just chucking whatever he feels like eating into his basket. Christmas dinner looks like mix ‘n’ match, to him. That's pretty sad.

And then, at about the ten minute mark of him loitering in the candy aisle and debating how many family sized packs of M&M’s he can buy versus how many he can eat when a red headed someone who is not the red headed someone he wants to see walks directly into him.

Bart makes the weirdest groaning sound as she hits the floor. Todd just best winded.

As it turns out, she was reading a magazine while she walked, and actually hadn't seen him, but Todd still feels like he's going to get some magnificent bruises, later on.

“Oh, ‘ey, Todd.” Bart greets him, pleasantly, and grins with crooked teeth. That's Ken’s influence, he knows. She never used to smile before meeting him. “What the hell are ya doin’ ‘round here? Thought everyone had already gone home for Christmas.”

Todd shrugs, and helps her back onto her feet. “I'm having Christmas on my own, this year. Didn't feel like going home.”

She pokes her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “Sounds pretty lonely.” He shrugs again, and picks up his basket, throwing in another family pack of M&M’s before he can think about it. “D’you wanna have Christmas with me?”

Todd raises an eyebrow, and Bart grabs his elbow, leading him toward the register. “ _Just_ you?”

“Naw.” Bart laughs, jarringly. “Me an’ Ken an’ Mona an’ Francis.”

"Francis?” Todd asks. He's never heard of anyone around campus called ‘Francis’, though that's not exactly hard, considering anyone who isn't in his classes or doesn't live near him he doesn't know.

“Professor Francis Pollock? Architecture?” Bart clarifies, and helps Todd unload his mix ‘n’ match Christmas dinner onto the counter. It's only vaguely weird to Todd that Bart is friends with the architecture professor. “None’a us have any family left - or any family who cares, in Ken’s case - so we have Christmas all together. It's kinda a club. Wanna come? You can keep all your snacks to yourself. There's no rule on sharin’.”

“Uh. I mean.” Todd licks his lips, pulling out his wallet. “Sure.”

"Great. I'll let Ken know.” Bart punches him in the shoulder, a typical goodbye, from her, and starts backing towards the door. “See ya later, Todd!”

“Hey, wait!” He calls after her and hands the cashier the correct amount of bills, shoving all his food into a plastic bag. “Did you drive here?”

Bart glances out into the parking lot, four cars parked out there, in the soft layer of snow. “I did.”

“Can you drive me back to campus?” Todd shudders at the idea of walking back home. “It's a bit of a walk.”

She considers this for a moment, and then shrugs, “I _guess_.”

“Thanks, Bart.” Todd says, and follows her out into the cold.

~

As it turns out, Mona’s hosting this year, and through a convoluted set of events that Todd doesn't bother to listen to, she and one of her coworkers (the one who took her dancing? He doesn't know) scored the roller rink tonight, so the party is being held there.

Todd thinks it's an awful idea, because there’s like only five or six of them, but Bart drives him there, anyway.

Things Todd wasn't expecting at this party:

One, for Francis to be this ancient looking guy. It surprises Todd, because he kinda expected them all to have befriended one of the younger professors, but then Francis tells him he's only thirty-eight and Todd feels even more confused.

Two, for, upon arrival, Bart and Ken race off to get skates and actually do really well on the rink, because apparently Bart used to do Roller Derby and Ken just didn't have any friends as a kid? Anyway, they're having fun while roller skating like champs and Todd _can't fucking handle it_.

Three, for the coworker who may or may not have taken Mona out dancing is actually horrible on roller skates (“In the interview they just, like, asked me to skate in a straight line, which was, like, really easy to fake, but in reality I'm, like, so bad at roller skating, you know?”) and to be incredibly apologetic about it. Todd thinks he's seen him in many different stores, and wonders how this guy manages to bounce from job to job.

Only about five minutes after Todd, Bart, and Ken arrive, the other coworker - Hugo? - takes off the skates. He's not really on the job, anyway.

Todd decides to veto the “you don't have to share the garbage you bought to drown your sorrows in” suggestion and spread it all out on the table when Mona brings out their preferred dishes.

Francis takes one look at this, looks up at Todd and says, “Welcome to the club, Todd.”

~

In between arriving at the roller rink and ending up slow dancing on the rink with Mona, there is a lot of heavy drinking and a lot of getting to know everyone around the table, and also a joint, shared out the back of the restaurant because the security camera back there is busted and Mona knows a foolproof way of covering up the smell.

When asked, she reveals that she brings one of her many cats there and waits until they piss all over the pavement. “It's very hard to house train them because I end up using the cat piss method a lot.” She admits, and Bart loses her shit.

Todd doesn't actually think it's true, but it's funny enough and he's high enough, so he doesn't ask too many question.

No one’s in a particularly Christmas-y mood, which is just fine with Todd because he hasn't enjoyed Christmas for a while now, and, it seemed, neither had any of them. Over the course of the evening, he slowly gains everyone’s trust and is granted their story.

Mona’s parents gave her up, being teenagers when they had her, and she grew up in foster care, never really settling. Having Christmas alone was normal for her. Francis’s parents had been killed when he was very young, and his older brother had died not long ago. Ken’s family hasn't been in contact with him for years, so on breaks he usually goes roadtripping. Bart’s family is all dead, now. Hugo discloses that he doesn't actually know where his dad is, anymore, since he moves a lot, and he would've spent Christmas alone if Mona hadn't invited him.

After the heaviness of all of it, Todd insists on karaoke, and it's horribly fantastic.

It's not that bad of a Christmas.

~

“So how’s Christmas down in Salem?” Todd says, one hand over his ear and the other holding his phone up. He can barely hear himself think over Francis’s over-enthusiastic rendition of _American Pie_.

"Pretty good, what about you?” Amanda responds, giggling. “Where are you? Why are can I hear someone singing Don McLean?”

"It's a long story.” Todd admits and retreats into the bathroom for a bit of silence. “I was just calling to say that I miss you and I love you.”

“How drunk are you right now?” She asks, and someone whoops, loudly, on her end of the line. Amanda shushes them

“Incredibly.” Todd admits.

“Wow.” Amanda laughs, again. “Who are you with?”

“A collection of weirdos.”

“Hey, be nice about Tina.”

“Tina’s in Bergsberg.” There's a wave of loneliness that hits him, but he shakes it away, immediately. “I'm hanging out with Mona Wilder and Bart Curlish and their friends at the roller rink. We’re doing karaoke.”

“Oh, so you're high as well?” He almost expects her to sound angry, at that, but she just sounds more amused than before.

He shrugs and takes a look at his reflection in the mirror. “A bit.”

“Great. Are you having fun?”

“Surprisingly.”

“Well, I can't fault that.”

Todd pauses. “How's things with Marvin?” He asks, because while he's a little out of his brain, right now, he remembers his sister and her feelings for the guy she lives with who drives Uber.

“Do you mean Martin?” Amanda corrects.

“Yeah.” And Todd may be a bit embarrassed but it's not like she can see that where she is.

“Fine, I think. I mean, I don't quite remember what you said to me about him, but…” She trails off. Music pounds down her end of the phone. Someone laughs. Amanda sighs. “Listen, you're not gonna remember this conversation, so I'm not gonna talk to you about this, right now, okay?”

“Okay.” Todd agrees, rubbing his face to get rid of the tired feeling beginning to hit him.

“Call me tomorrow morning when you're so hungover you want to die.”

“Will do. Love you, sis.”

“I know, turd-fucker.” And she hangs up. Todd stuff his phone back into his pocket and heads back out into the rink.

~

“Out of curiosity,” Todd says, passing Mona one of his seven remaining packets of family sized M&M’s. “Was Hugo the one who took you dancing?”

“Yes,” Mona sighs, watching Bart try to teach Hugo how to skate, properly. “But he's not second date material.”

“Why? What went wrong with the first date?”

“Well, it would've been nice if he could _actually dance_ , at all.”

Todd nearly chokes on his beer.

~

Todd passes out to Ken drunkenly singing _As Long As You Love Me_ to an even drunker Bart and a passed out Hugo, and wakes up with a splitting headache to find Bart demonstrating her skating skills by jumping over him, as he's lying in the middle of the rink.

He screams, which hurts his head, and startles Bart and she trips and lands on top of him which hurts his body and the only one there to see it is Francis who is so hungover he “can't fucking see”.

Mona drives them all home, being the one with the least alcohol in her system, and the only person who knows where everyone lives and is willing to drop off their cars once she's finished cleaning up the rink.

Todd offers to pay her for driving him home and not forcing him to be a part of the big clean up but she just pats his head, walking him into his dorm, and says, “I'm not a prostitute.”

He doesn't know what that has to do with anything he just said.

A few hours afterwards, he finds Hugo on Instagram and finds the roughly sixty million blurry selfies he posted, last night, with nonsense captions. Francis is in almost all of them, including the solitary video of Mona attempting to perform _Rap God_ , where the camera pans to Francis clapping and whooping.

~

Todd hides out in his dorm for the next few days, waiting for Silas or Farah or Tina to come back and talk to him. Not that the No Family Christmas Club group chat isn't amazingly funny and Todd isn't enjoying it immensely but he's really lonely, and no matter how much crap he eats and how many Netflix shows he watches because Bart recommends them and he kinda trusts her judgement, it doesn't get any less lonely.

He's about halfway through _Victoria_ \- a recommendation backed up by Ken, because apparently they watched it together and are finding an illegal stream of the second series because it's so good - when Tina bursts in, sunglasses on, looking pretty dead, actually.

“What's _up_ , Toddy-B?” She screeches upon entering, kicking the door shut.

Todd immediately shushes her and gestures for her to come over and join him. He's not usually invested in historical dramas, but he's in the middle of episode four and he _might_ be in love with Prince Albert.

Tina takes the hint and scurries over to his bed, sitting beside Todd and peering at his computer screen.

“Wow.” She whispers. “How fucked up are you, right now?”

“Completely sober.” Todd mutters, hoping she'll just settle in and watch with him, because he doesn't really want to talk, right now. The universe is not on his side.

Tina jams her elbow into his ribs. “Oh my god, I was gone for like five days, what the hell happened?”

“Made some friends.” Todd groans, in response, rubbing the tender spot. “Didn't you see my Instagram? I thought you commented on, like, ten of the pictures.”

“Yeah, it was a total mess.” Tina agrees. “I had no idea what the fuck was going on.”

“Had a party with Mona and some other people at the roller rink.” Todd does not take his us off the screen as Albert helps Victoria off her horse. “It was surprisingly nuts.”

“Jesus.” Tina mutters. There's a long moment where they both just sit there watching this scene play out on Todd’s computer screen. Then Tina breaks the silence. “Well, look, anyway, Hobbs is holding a New Years party, tomorrow night, and I think you should come.”

“Why?” Todd replies in a bored voice.

“What do you _mean_ , why?”

“I _mean_ , I'm playing through our normal you persuading me to go to a party with you banter, and you've gone off-script. Usually your next line is ‘it'll be good for you’ or some shit like that, because I never get out and I'm always getting over someone and I always need to drink my cares away, so what's different now?” He says, glancing to her, so as not miss anything going on in the episode. “What's got you distracted?”

“I took your advice.” She murmurs.

“My advice?” Todd repeats, distracted.

“I…I'm dating Farah.”  
“Oh.” He clicks on the space bar on his computer. “Okay. Cool.”

He turns to look at her and Tina’s brow is furrowed. “That's a better reaction than I was expecting.”

“What _were_ you expecting?” He questions.

“You being all passive aggressive. You closing off. You know.” She gestures, vaguely, at his torso. “The usual stuff when someone you trust starts dating your ex.”

“Tina, it's your fucking life.” He says, feeling like such an asshole. “I'm not gonna be that guy.”

“Oh, thank fucking god,” Tina sighs, “I thought I was gonna have to curb stomp you.”

“Unlikely.” Todd assures her, and presses the space bar, again.

They stare at Jenna Coleman in period costume for a second. “I still think you should come to the party, and it _would_ be good for you, even if Dirk isn't there.”

“Dirk…isn't what we’re talking about, right now.” Todd replies, shaking his head.

“No.” Tina agrees.

“I'll come to the party, but trust I will be getting very drunk the whole time.” He tells her.

“I'll find you someone to kiss.” She says, and bumps their shoulders together.

“Great. Now, shove over and learn to love this TV show the way I do.”

~

Amanda calls him at ten pm the day before New Years Eve.

“I took what you said about me and Martin being afraid to start anything to heart.” Is the first thing she says when he picks up. Todd pauses in the middle of eating a piece of chicken. He pauses the episode of _Victoria_ and turns his full attention onto Amanda.

“Did you, now?” He replies, picking up in container of honey soy chicken and rice, and placing it in his lap.

“I did.” Amanda agrees. “I thought, if we're gonna be scared let's be scared together, and the plan was that I was gonna kiss him and see what happened, but plans changed and I thought _we’re both adults_ , so we sat down and we talked about it.”

Todd shoves some chicken in his mouth, and speaks through it. “That's awfully mature of you.”

“It is, isn't it?” She agrees, smugly.

“What did Martin think of all this?” He inquires, because while it's good to know that his sister is pursuing someone and doing a sensible job of it, he also does not know Martin all that well.

“Well, I mean, first of all, I was right, and he does feel stuff for me, but he didn't want to push the issue and make me uncomfortable, ergo scared, ergo you were right.” Amanda says.

“I am, sometimes.” Todd says, and gathers rice covered in sauce onto his plastic spork.

“Yeah.” There's a beeping on the other end of the phone like a microwave and then a sound like a ceramic bowl being set down in the microwave. “Anyway, I told him how I felt and we agreed that we should take whatever _this_ is slow, because neither of us wanna fuck up.”

“That's…” Todd pauses, thinking it over. “That's _extremely_ mature of you.”

“Well. I mean.” He can almost hear her shrugging on the other end of the line. “That's not a _bad_ thing.”

“It's not.” He agrees.

“Yeah. So, that's me.” Amanda says, and sighs a bit. “That’s what I wanted to tell you on Christmas, but you were so high you weren't even speaking full sentences.”

Todd winces, a bit. “Sounds about right, yeah.” He says.

“You're the worst.” She tells him.

“Many people would agree with you.” Todd informs her through a mouth of honey soy chicken. “A few would disagree.”

“I could take ‘em.” She says, darkly.

“I know you could.” He says.

“What about you and Dirk?”

“Dirk is in England.”

“Bummer.” Amanda comments, and it sounds rather genuine. How gone does she think Todd is on Dirk? “New Years would be a great time for you two to fall drunkenly into bed, together.”

“Glad you approve.” Todd says, but the words feel wrong on his tongue. Dirk…Dirk isn't like that. Sure, before, when Todd's head was preoccupied and filled with cotton, sure, he'd felt like that. He'd felt like a kiss in a car while they slowly froze in the middle of a snowstorm. Now he feels…distant. He feels different. He feels like someone who won't walk away after a kiss. Dirk feels permanent. “He's with his mom.”

“Damn.” She mutters. “So, what are _you_ doing on New Years?”

“Tina and Hobbs are holding a party. I'm getting them to invite some of my Christmas party friends.”

“Sounds solid.” She says.

“It does.” Todd replies.

~

Farah arrives back on campus on New Years Eve, bringing with her tales of Eddie giving her sympathetic looks across the table at every meal and the half-thought presents she received, but she isn't as put out as she usually is when she returns from being with her family.

If anything, she's glowing.

Todd’s glad. He couldn’t take anyone in the Black family in a fight, so if she's happy, he doesn't have to. He thinks there'd probably be a scared but determined line to fight the Black family for making Farah sad, nowadays. Tina would probably be at the front.

Todd’s got two hours until he has to go and help Tina and Hobbs set up for the party. So he's spending his time wisely.

 **Results for** _how to tell if you’re playing gay chicken?_

Todd groans. Nothing helps. He has no idea what his feelings are for Dirk, but they are definitely not what Urban Dictionary seems to think Gay Chicken is.

His phone buzzes. He picks up on the second ring.

“Y’ello?” Todd says, closing his laptop.

“You sound like a middle aged dad, from the suburbs.” Tina deadpans on the other end of the line. Todd barely holds off a surprised laugh. “It was like your dad astral projected into your body. I felt like you were about to ask me to come to a cookout.”

“Fuck you, as if it wasn't unsettling for me, too.” He responds.

“Anyway,” she continues, pausing to laugh for a second, “I need you to help Farah pick up the ice. We’re getting a lot more people than I thought, and despite your twiggy exterior and my girlfriend’s ability to deadlift two-hundred and fifty pounds, I need you to go and help her.”

“Okay.” Todd says, only mildly offended by the phrase ‘twiggy exterior’. “Where should I meet her?”

“She'll pick you up outside your dorm.” Tina says. And then follows it up with, “See you soon, Toddy-B.”

Todd puts on a few layers and goes to wait near the front door of his dorm building. Farah pulls up not two minutes later, in her jeep.

It's warm inside her car, unlike Dirk’s, it's a better make and model, with an engine that won't fail. Farah smiles when he gets in but says nothing. She looks on the edge of something.

It's takes them six minutes to get to the gas station with the ice freezer out front.

They don't say a word to each other for any of those six minutes. Farah keeps shooting him looks like she wants to say something, but she's holding herself back.

He's loading the third bag of ice into the back of her jeep when Farah finally sighs, turns around, and grins at him. “I talked to my counsellor.” She says. “And she agrees with you. She thinks I'm qualified, the way I'm going. I applied to the Seattle Police Academy.”

“What?” Todd almost drops the bag, but manages to get it into the back. “Oh my god. Farah, I'm so proud of you!”

He grabs her with cold fingers and pulls her into a hug. “She says I have a really high chance.” Farah whispers, hugging him back, tightly. “You were right. I was doubting myself. I can do this.”

“You can, I always knew you could.” He pulls away, looking her in the eye, and smiles. “I'm glad you can see that now.”

He buys her a candy bar from the gas station to celebrate. They pay for the ice, make idle conversation as they drive to Hobbs’s place, and it's not awkward or strained, anymore.

Todd didn't realise it was that easy. But seeing Farah happy, seeing her successful and happy, kissing Tina as a hello, and dumping ice down the back of her shirt as an endearment is so good. It doesn't make him jealous.

He's glad she's happy.

~

Silas and Panto barge in at four pm to help with setting up food and stuff, and they hold onto each other as they announce that they told their parents about their relationship. Silas looks so proud to announce that his mother took it better than he'd hoped. Panto smiles toothily at them all. His father wasn't thrilled, at first, but his sister made him come around to it.

Tina throws confetti at them, and Hobbs insists on breaking out some of the champagne, early, to celebrate their weirdass _Romeo and Juliet_ relationship becoming an open and normal one.

~

Mona arrives not long after that, with Hugo in tow.

(“Trying to find him some action,” she explains, after pushing Hugo into the small crowd of people who have already arrived.

“No action for you?” Todd asks, curiously, and hands her a cup of so far untainted punch.

Mona shrugs. “I've been thinking maybe I don't really want a relationship.”

“You do you.” Todd shrugs and lifts his cup up. “Cheers.”)

Bart and Ken arrive about twenty minutes after Mona and Hugo, dressed as strangely as ever, and Todd almost calls quits when he sees that Bart has a flask. Drunk Bart was fun at the roller rink, but the repercussions of her being that drunk in this kind of crowd could be bad.

Bart's the type of person who looks like she could kill someone just by waving at them.

Ken nods to Todd across the room, a sure sign of _I'm not sure where this night is going but I have a feeling it's not going anywhere good._

A not exactly great feeling settles in Todd’s gut.

He makes some excuse and hangs out in the bathroom for fifteen minutes to catch his breath. When he comes back, the party has only grown.

Which is just.

Terrific.

~

New Years is just as loud and crazy as Todd expected it to be, even if Hobbs had said it would be a small affair. For once Todd doesn't really what to be a participant.

He wraps himself up and goes up to the roof. There's a few people up there, already, and Tina put up a few strings of fairy lights. There's a group near the door talking about setting off fireworks at midnight. Todd snorts and takes a sip of his coke.

He unlocks his phone again. He's been here since two pm. He's been here for nine hours.

Todd opens the Facebook app. There's that post that Dirk made about finding a kitten in a ditch and adopting it. There's that post Silas posted to his Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook of he and his brother in suits for their mothers Christmas Day Gala six days ago. There's that post Tina made of her and Farah and Hobbs and Todd after they got the ice in Hobbs’s apartment, all looking tired but ready to go for the party.

A woman called Hanna Cjelli tags Dirk in a post, and Todd, ever the worst Facebook Stalker ever, checks it out. It's a picture of Dirk, ugly Christmas sweater on, holding a black kitten, with the same red headed woman standing behind him, both staring at something off camera.

Todd wonders, idly, if Hanna Cjelli is Dirk’s mother. He wonders if this is a regular Christmas thing for them. There's no caption, and while the evil part of his brain begs him to dig a little deeper and go onto Hanna’s page, Todd isn't that weird, and he exits the app.

He wishes Dirk were here, and not in England with his cat and his mom taking amazingly ugly Christmas photos. If Dirk were here he wouldn't let his feelings stew inside his head.

He could have them out in the open, hoping for the best.

If Dirk was here, he wouldn't have to imagine that awful kiss over and over again. He could make a new kiss memory, if Dirk allowed him to, one that wouldn't make him epwince every time he thought of it. Not a kiss that has their teeth clacking together, not a kiss where Todd just keeps pushing closer, not a kiss where Todd just takes and gives nothing back.

He'd be better, he'd be kinder, if Dirk gave him the chance. If he gave himself the chance and stopped chickening out of confronting everything.

If Dirk was here, he could try and start off the new year with a less-awful kiss.

If Dirk was here, he could try and start over.

“Hey.” Todd whirls around. No. There's no way that he's here, right now.

But Dirk grins, shyly, and the fairy lights glimmer down, revealing faded freckles on his nose and cheeks.

"Hey.” Todd replies, hastily shoving his phone in his back jeans pocket. “I thought you were in the Isle of Wight. With your mom. Weren't you there? I swear your Facebook said you were-”

“Todd.” He stops. He's never heard Dirk sound unsure, before.

“Dirk.” Todd says, but he doesn't know if Dirk hears him.

“I'm here.” Dirk swallows, thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing as he does so. His fingers fiddle with the hem of his light blue sweater. He's never seen Dirk wear anything but pyjamas or his normal dress shirt and tie. Seeing his bare throat like this is just- “And, you should know, I'm here because I have feelings for you.”

That definitely makes Todd's thoughts stop dead in their tracks. “What?” He doesn't mean to say it as disbelievingly as he does. Dirk’s face falls, and Todd feels his stomach plummet.

“I was hoping you'd feel the same-” Dirk begins, but Todd can't let him think he's anything less than completely infatuated with him.

“No, no, wait, that came out wrong.” Todd interrupts, waving his hands like he can shake the nervousness out. “I have feelings for you too. Strong feelings. I-want-to-kiss-you feelings.”

Dirk’s expression opens like a door, and it's like sunlight is pouring out of every pore on his face. Todd feels like he's bathing in light. It's wonderful. Dirk grins so wide his teeth peek out from behind his lips. “You've _already_ kissed me.” He says, but his tone is teasing.

Todd shakes his head. “That was a _terrible_ kiss.” He tells him.

More grinning. “If that's a terrible kiss I want to know what a great kiss is like.” Dirk says.

“I want to kiss you properly, for good reasons, not stupid reasons, like when I'm zipped into your windbreaker and wondering if I'll die there.” Todd says, and he hesitantly takes Dirk’s hand.

“You're not very good at setting a mood, are you.”

“I'm shit at setting a mood. I want to kiss you. I'm also wondering why you aren't in England.”

“I told my mom I was half in love with a boy who probably didn't like me the way I liked him, and she said the only real way for me to know for sure whether you liked me or not was to ask. She said I should come back here and tell you how I felt, and kiss you, if you wanted me to.”

“Your mother is a sensible lady.”

“She is.”

“Do you want to kiss me right now?”

“I do.”

“Do you want to wait until midnight?”

“I do.”

“Then let's wait until midnight.”

“Let’s.”

~

They kiss at midnight, with Todd’s hands pressed against Dirk’s soft blue sweater, on the roof, and Dirk’s hands cupping Todd’s face. It's not an awful kiss, and Dirk later insists that the kiss in the car two hours from Salem, Oregon was not an awful kiss, either.

Todd tips his head just right enough to deepen it the right way. He only presses close enough that Dirk can close the distance, and he doesn't take everything. He takes as much as he gives, with that kiss.

The people by the door promptly set off fireworks and Dirk and Todd nearly fall off the roof in shock, but they don't, and they just hold each other while the new year is rung in and the police are called for noise complaints.

 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please consider elsving me a comment to mull over, or just a kudos to show your appreciation. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee and come scream at me there. Don't be shy, I'm always looking for inspiration.
> 
> Again, thank you.


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